On Zapo De Ray’s THE EASTER BUNNY CHOCOLATE ELEVATOR
I
I hear:
An instant cathedral of sound; reverberant, monumental.
Complete with the sense of steel bracing, as melody becomes animal,
Arching up in strange air, as the bunny breaks through the burrow
To run through mad meadows soundtracked by this musical minimal.
For there is soul and sword in this sound, to soothe then slice
Through the fissure of both flight and of futures that we may yet
Recognise, and there is also the sense of ascension’s symphonic,
As whatever Christ was at Easter manifests as dreams die.
Zapo De Ray’s fifth EP promises ambience for a lifetime,
As sonic ambulance chasers, we are the wounds these songs heal.
Sometimes they are songs with one note, sometimes collections
Of chords which soon cluster, congealing like blood in a bottle;
As we taste the technique the throat feels
What it means to mutate, and where it is that taste takes us.
We hear song-snakes twisting for us, as this harmonic refrain
Takes the lead. Zapo conjures the shades cast as apocalyptic cloud
Cuts land masses, just as he stirs the poison on which the galactic pigs
Will soon feed. This is air inside air. This is a wordless, unending verse
Turned to vapour. This is dark chocolate and its closely kept tang
As taste’s oil. Why, on Christ’s return does the rabbit run madly?
Was Jesus renewed in the warren, gaining wonderland fur under soil?
This twelve minute track colours this while offering us further transport.
Along the rails the grass blisters, trees become scars. Bunny, boil.
And as it does the steam will gleam beneath darkness. Set on a low light
This mixture is the lift to the dark where stars toil.
Ii
The Chocolate Elevator itself is the rush of air passed through angels.
It is the sound of what separates them from the token template
Of our flesh. But Angels are more likely to be aliens, so if God is in the stars
Then surely the form of their flights are not orbits, but vertical passage
From the base of time itself through space mesh. And on through the maze
Of what we take to be vision. Here then is angel’s passage through spacecraft
And void, ever on. As we join with them in an eight minute trek through star
Pathways, the cruise calm and graceful. The dare to the dark our dream song.
Write your own words. Hear an alien instrument playing. Catch a comet’s tail
And burn blindly as it courses on stripping steel which can be sucked
From the sky as every element entertains you and you die by degrees
Laughing wildly as spaceship and skin start to peel. Energise. Elevate.
Shimmer yourself into pieces. The song is now Star-Lord of all it surveys.
Conquer space. For you are the Skywalker now. You are your own
Silver Surfer. Like Norrin Radd you carve visions of which we can only dream
In night’s place. But as with snow in the hand as the elevator ascends
Its warm water, cooling again to make islands on which each traveller
Will remain. This music evaporates into the effects of ascension
Before your molecules are re-orodered and you evolve at last from past pain.
David Erdos April 7th 2023
https://zapoderay.bandcamp.com/album/the-easter-bunny-chocolate-elevator
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